Kalina Christoff
Congratulations goes out to Dr. Kalina Christoff, who was selected as a Peter Wall Institute Wall Scholar for 2017-2018. Wall Scholars are chosen among leading UBC researchers from all academic disciplines, with the objective of creating a dynamic and diverse intellectual community at the Institute.
Kalina Christoff is a Professor of Psychology at UBC and Principal Investigator of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Thought Lab. Her work focuses on understanding human thought, using a combination of functional neuroimaging (fMRI), behavioural testing, and theoretical work. Her research spans the full spectrum of thought processes: from spontaneous thought, including phenomena such as mind-wandering and daydreaming; to goal-directed thought, including deliberate reasoning and problem solving; to creative thought, which combines deliberate and spontaneous modes of thought in a dynamic and interactive fashion. She also does work on introspection, meta-cognition, boredom, meditation, dreams, and different forms of self-experience. Her research relates all these mental phenomena to their neural correlates, by constructing neuroscientific models grounded in current scientific understanding of the dynamic interactions between large-scale brain systems, including the default, salience, and frontoparietal control networks.
The Wall Scholars Research Award will allow Dr. Christoff to spend one year (August 1, 2017 to July 31, 2018) in residence at the Peter Wall Institute in a collaborative, interdisciplinary environment.
